Family of woman killed by JPD officers wants accountability

Police responded to a call of someone running another vehicle off the road. After they pulled her over, police say Crystaline Barnes tried to escape, driving her car towards them, before they fired shots.
Wochit

On the day Crystaline Barnes died in a hail of police bullets, she had gone to do laundry, family members said.

The mother of two small children had recently gotten a new job — her second job, according to her cousin, Dwayne "Chris" Hamilton.

Hamilton said the honors student at Jackson State University had also just gotten a new apartment and was purchasing a second car. She was making a life for herself and her children, ages 2 and 5, on the morning she was killed in an officer-involved shooting on Fernwood Road over the weekend.

"She was smart and was a great mother and a great friend," Hamilton said. "She helped people any time they needed it. She was really close to her friends, and all her friends really loved her."

Jackson Police Department reports say at 7:30 a.m. Saturday,officers had been responding to a call of a vehicle running another car off the road. They pulled Barnes' over.

"After stopping the suspect vehicle and requesting an additional unit for assistance, the vehicle pulls away," the news release on the incident reads.

According to police reports, after stopping, Barnes turned the car around to escape the responding unit. She then allegedly began driving backward toward an officer who had gotten out of the car.

The officer fired shots, but was able to get out of the way before Barnes' car hit a patrol car. According to police, Barnes then began driving forward again, toward the first officer, who also fired shots.

Barnes' car came to rest against a utility pole just off the road. She was dead at the age of 21.

Coroner Sharon Grisham-Stewart said she's not willing to release how many times Barnes was shot yet because she hasn't had a chance to speak with the family.

Nobody has been able to say what Barnes' state of mind was, or what might have transpired in the moments before the fatal chain of events was set into motion.

Barnes had been put in the Pre-Trial Diversion Program in 2016 after being charged in a 2014 house burglary at age 17. It is unclear if she was still under any kind of court supervision related to that. Court records also show some minor traffic violations for which she still had outstanding fines, but according to Justice Court personnel, they would not have caused her to have warrants in her name until they went to collections, which they had not.

"This is a tragedy, a real tragedy, and nobody wins in this situation. I want to assure the family and I want to assure the public that this investigation will be fair and unbiased and thorough and complete," said Jackson Interim Police Chief Anthony Moore after saying he had spoken with Barnes' mother. "The facts and circumstances of this case will be revealed, and we want the criminal justice process to unfold as swiftly and justly as possible in this case."

The Hinds County district attorney's office is also involved, Moore said. There will be a routine internal affairs investigation as well as a criminal investigation to find out if officers not only followed the law, but also followed department protocol.

But there were no body camera or dash camera videos. The only officers there were the ones who fired the shots. Some bystanders got video after the shooting as officers worked the crime scene, but there's no known visual record of what transpired.

Hamilton, who had just graduated with a bachelor's in criminal justice, says that's not okay with him or with the rest of Barnes' family. None of this is.

"The funeral will be a closed casket," he said. "I can only imagine with the number of rounds lodged into her vehicle and her body, I’m assuming it’s not good to see her like that."

She was unarmed, Hamilton said, and shouldn't have been shot regardless of whether police considered the vehicle a weapon or not.

"They have our citizens believing that this girl gave them probable cause to launch over 20-something rounds of ammunition into the woman’s car," Hamilton said.

What led to the events that night is unclear, as is whether Barnes' car was the one that had run another vehicle off the road. Hamilton holds that whatever was going on with his cousin, it's clear that when the police became involved, she was afraid.

"We all have two sides to us, agreeable and disagreeable, but her agreeable side was positive," he said. "If she was trying to get away it’s because she felt threatened, if she was trying to get out of the situation, it’s because she didn’t want to be in the situation she was in."

Hamilton also takes issue with the amount of time it took for police to investigate the scene.

"Nobody reached out to the family, nobody said come to the scene," he said. "It's like she’s there alone with no family and no friends, just there in that car for hours.

"She was a great person, a hardworking person, came from nothing to something, put herself and her children in a better situation. Wasn’t violent, didn’t deserve to be gunned down like that, it’s awful. There has to be some answers and not only are we seeking answers, we’re seeking justice."

Hamilton, who calls police officers "suspected killers," said the events need to be used to impose more responsibility on police, but also to teach young people about making better decisions.

"This needs to bond us, rather than separate us," he said.

In the meantime, he also has a list of demands for JPD.

"Remake the whole crime scene, do a reenactment. Where were you when you shot this gun, the whole thing," he said. "I think internal affairs should get involved and the (Mississippi Bureau of Investigation) should be involved, and it should be immediately. We demand that the bureau get involved, internal affairs get involved, the chief, the mayor, the government, and the president get involved. This has got to stop one way or another."